TAST Week 4: Cretan Stitch

After a weekend of snow, freezing rain, and cold I was ready to think warm thoughts.  I looked at samples of Cretan stitch in several books and on the web and found a lot of crewel embroidery leaves and flowers.  So here is my tropical interpretation of leaves and flowers -- an island palm tree complete with coconuts.  I also added some Cretan stitch samples to my stitch sampler.  Some of them are kind of pretty but they were not very interesting to stitch.  

Family Photos

I love this picture of my mother as a little girl.  There are two others, one of her mother and one of her Grandmother all dressed as little cowboys at about the same age.  This one is from 1944 and it makes it easy to see that she came from Texas.

I also finished some stitching, a small needlepoint bookmark for a friend.  I need to sew the ends together and put it in the mail.

Take a Stitch Tuesday Week 3: Feather Stitch

 I layered feather stitch in different threads, thread weights and colors for my free embroidery piece this week.  The rock at the bottom is an overdyed linen thread.  The stems are soy silk and perle cotton, the flowers in french knots and detached chain stitch are in soy silk.

The even weave variations on Feather Stitch show differences in stitch length, stitch width and stitch orientation.  Feather stitch is combined with french knots, detached chain, and buttonhole stitch.  Colors are combined to create different effects.

The final picture is a picture of the stitch sampler so far.  There are five rectangular blocks:  arrowhead stitch, backstitch, fly stitch, buttonhole stitch and feather stitch.  The first two were stitched before this round of TAST started.

Take A Stitch Tuesday Week 2: Buttonhole Stitch

This week I continued with my even weave sample.  I varied the size of the Buttonhole stitches, changed their direction, and layered them on this sample:

My free embroidery piece this week is a fish which is all in buttonhole stitch.

Take A Stitch Tuesday Week 1: Fly Stitch

Here are samples of Fly Stitch on an evenweave background.  French knots, detached chain stitches, and cross stitches were also used.

Here is a free embroidery sample using Fly Stitch embelished with French knots, detached chain stitches, cross stitches and straight stitches.

Welcome 2012

A new year always brings with it promises of new beginnings and resolutions.  This year I hope to procrastinate less and to finish more.  I am going to participate in the Take A Stitch Tuesday Challenge and use it as an opportunity to stretch my creativity.  I am going to try to finish more projects and to improve my skill level as I work on them.

That said, over the holidays I started two new projects.  They are mostly traditional cross stitch and both are fairly large.  On Christmas Day, I started working on Chatelaine's Rose Lights.  It was a gift several years ago and I thought it was appropriate to open and start on a gift at Christmas time.  My New Year's project is Lavender and Lace's Autumn Angel.  I have always loved the angels and mermaids and the golds and oranges of autumn are some of my favorite colors.